Charlie Guard: Do Parents or Judges Decide?

The United Kingdom’s highest court has determined it was in Charlie Gard’s “best interest” for his parents to give up on him and watch him die. The European Court of Human Rights sadly agreed. Under European law, this rendered Charlie hopeless, his parents powerless to intervene. His parents raised more than $1.6 million in private…

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Medical Child Abuse: Sean’s Story

Gary and Nancy took their nine-month-old son, Sean, into his “regular pediatrician’s office” (p. 25) because he seemed to be having trouble moving around. Due to an orthopedist not being able to see him quickly, though, they wound up at a hospital. At the hospital, Sean was subjected to a skeletal survey and CT scan…

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Medical Child Abuse: Justin’s Story

Imagine taking your 35-day-old infant, who had been ill since birth and under medical care, into the hospital due to vomiting and being told that the CT scans showed “an acute skull fracture” (p. 33). In reality, baby Justin did not have a skull fracture, but no one knew that yet. His parents had no…

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Medical Child Abuse: Baby Richard’s Story

Imagine finding yourself accused of child abuse because you can’t explain how your four-week-old baby fractured his leg. That’s exactly what happened in the case of baby Richard. The parents simply took their 4-week-old baby boy to the hospital for a swollen leg, and then found themselves accused of abuse. To prevent losing custody, they…

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Missing Children

Missing and Forgotten

“Since 2000, federal records show child welfare agencies across the country closed the cases of more than 53,000 foster kids listed as ‘runaway’ and at least another 61,000 children listed as ‘missing.’” https://www.fox25boston.com/…/missing-and-forgott…/755376482 Sadly, many children are being thrown into this system temporarily even though they have parents who have done nothing wrong. Check out…

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Arizona’s New Law

Arizona recently passed a law that limits the situations in which children can be removed from their parents without a court order. https://www.azcentral.com/…/new-law-defines-when…/509555002/ It remains to be seen, though, if the law will indeed help limit needless removals, as this article from last fall explains. https://www.azcentral.com/…/arizona-department-c…/705733001/ Now is the time to continue pushing for parental…

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Is Foster Care Better?

While we recognize that foster care is necessary for some children in the case of true abuse, let’s make sure children who have loving homes don’t get lost in a system that studies show often hurts rather than helps children. “Children on the margin of placement are found to be two to three times more…

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Troubling Trends in Foster Care

Foster Care Trends

The Parental Rights Foundation this week reviewed the five latest AFCARS reports and uncovered some disturbing trends. According to the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) summary of 2016 data released in October of last year and the four previous reports, the number of children in foster care nationwide has been trending…

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Prepare to Be Shocked

Prepare to be shocked, or even angry. Imagine you are driving your young daughter home from preschool. You’ve just endured a child welfare investigation stemming from allegations that someone else physically abused your daughter, allegations which have thankfully been deemed unfounded. The intrusion was mercifully brief compared to many, and the investigator is now out…

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The Law Versus Judge Lyris Younge

PA Court

Photo from Google.Room 5A of the Philadelphia Family Court is one of those places parental rights go to die. Or it would be, if presiding judge Lyris Younge had her way. “She has the capacity to be a good judge,” one lawyer who has served before her told The Legal Intelligencer for a recent article,…

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